Yesterday’s North American Pro League Apex matches marked the halfway point of the ALGS regular season split, where Complexity in particular was dominant, notching two wins and almost a third in a set of six chaotic games.
Complexity thrived on the same disorder that overwhelmed other top teams, and fragged from start to finish in Sunday’s action.
They set the tone with a comfortable win in the first game of the set, a 22-point game that silenced any doubts about the team’s potential going forward. Sentinels came out of the gate with good results as well, while TSM and Cloud9 struggled, going out early.
For some teams, today’s competition represented an opportunity to cement their elite status in year two of the ALGS. Cloud9 and Sentinels, who’d both notched dominant performances in earlier weeks, could keep comfortable positions in the overall league standings with strong results on Sunday.
For other squads, it was a reckoning: Pro Apex juggernauts TSM had disappointed their massive fanbase so far, sitting behind several teams with less impressive legacies. Another mediocre result today would have put their playoff hopes in jeopardy and further erode their reputation as the most fearsome team in pro Apex. Complexity, another strong team in the earlier days of the ALGS led by the charismatic Bowen “Monsoon” Fuller, similarly hadn’t found their stride in the Pro League so far, but today will have helped their case.
TSM, perhaps showing discomfort with their recent variety of team compositions, were back to using Bloodhound, Gibraltar, and Wraith. But the change to more conservative characters didn’t lead to immediate results. In game two, Phillip “ImperialHal” Dosen had close to 50,000 viewers on his Twitch stream watching TSM die early once again, while Sentinels continued their strong performance. During an endgame near the tunnel entrance, they were forced into an early fight, and the Pittsburgh Knights were able to get a win with great positioning. Sentinels got second place and 15 points, leaving them tied with Complexity for first overall.
In game three, Sentinels and Complexity both stumbled. Other squads carried the game: Sign Us Please, a team of pro Apex veterans on the hunt for an organization to represent, jumped into first place by piling up kills. Dubblyew, a team using Loba, earned a solid win in a final circle filled with Gibraltar bubbles and put themselves into contention for a victory.
But Complexity was back on top with a 25-point win in game four, showing excellent bubble fighting in a final circle where four different teams shared the broken building in Fragment East.
Fighting early in game five, TSM kidnapped a member of Torrent Esports with a Wraith portal, a stylish way of gaining some much-needed momentum. A difficult rotation up the open hill toward Epicenter left Jordan “Reps” Wolfe dead, ImperialHal downed and Eric “Snip3down” Wrona with a a sliver of health. But they managed to come back in spectacular fashion as the duo reset and fought into the zone, killing Complexity along the way, who’d hoped to pick up some easy kills on the injured squad. TSM finished in fourth place with nine kills, finally getting a decent result, while the popular streamer Christian “Nokokopuffs” Feliciano and his squad Senior Service won the game, which ended near Survey Camp.
Going into the sixth and final game of the day, Complexity was only a few points ahead of the pack. They needed a great game to stay on top, and they got what they needed, surviving into the endgame, killing their rivals Sentinels, and getting second place, more than enough to guarantee their win for the day. TSM dug deep for the last game, finishing with ten kills and a confident portal play finale to outlast Complexity. Those heroics shot them into fourth place.
It was practically a requirement for Complexity and TSM do well on Sunday. Both are pro Apex powerhouses who dominated the early days of the ALGS but hadn’t yet displayed their full talents in the Pro League. In the overall standings, Complexity’s win puts them in sixth place, and TSM’s not far behind in eighth place.
Cloud9, who’ve been brilliant in the Pro League so far, couldn’t manage to generate much momentum this week, but they’re still near the top of the leaderboard. Sentinels, after a disappointing second week of play, showed fantastic consistency in a very tough lobby, solidifying their status at the highest tier of Apex and putting them in easy reach of the top spot in the league.
The ALGS will be taking a short break which will allow players to adjust to new balance changes coming out on Nov. 2, but will return on Friday, Nov. 19, at 7:00 PM CT.
Published: Nov 1, 2021 08:59 am